AngrySouthernerOopNorth

Tuesday, 27 September 2016

British sport is imbued
with a strong ethic of ‘fair play’. The concept of amateurism promoted ‘pure’
sport, played for its own sake, unadulterated by commercial influences. But for
all their amateur bluster British sport was frequently tainted with class
prejudice, racism and jingoistic fervor.

British fair play has
always, therefore, required a contrast and there is an implicit suggestion that
while we Brits play with a ‘straight bat’, foreigners cheat. The outcry over
Maradona’s 'Hand of God' or Lance Armstrong’s doping contrasts starkly with the hyperbolic coverage of the
Brownlee brothers recent display of sportsmanship – even though it appeared to break the rules. But what of
Michael Owen’s diving, Rugby Union’s 'bloodgate' scandal or, most recently Bradley Wiggins use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs)?

Unlike Armstrong, a case
has been made that Bradley Wiggins use of powerful performance enhancing drugs
under the guise of TUEs is acceptable – fair even – because it was an approved
prescription sanctioned by the Union
Cycliste Internationale (UCI)
itself. As Team Sky supremo David Brailsford claimed; his team had complied with the rules at all times
and stayed "the right
side of the line".
Indeed they had, and there’s the rub.

Like Apple, Vodafone,
Amazon or Starbucks who legally avoid billions in corporation tax, Team Sky’s actions are, according to the rules in
place, justified. But their actions, like those of the multinational
corporations, look extremely unethical; especially in light of Team Sky’s
previous claims of cleanliness.

That Apple and Team Sky
remain within the rules means the
condemnatory finger has to be pointed towards the people who control the
organizations that make up these ‘laws’. If societies want equitable tax
structures, or sporting contests that are in any way genuine, they must change,
but cultures of doping, corruption, racism, sexism and homophobia persist
because of their actions or, more commonly, inaction. Governing bodies had no
qualms in banning athletes for life in the past for the most trivial offences, but there appears to be no genuine will to stamp out
doping or other controversial issues in sport.

Only this week we have
witnessed FIFA’s lamentable decision to abolish its anti-racism taskforce.
Claims that its work was
completed before Russia, a country with a serious problem of racism, hosts the 2018 World Cup have raised many a
cynical eyebrow, even if no other
country (as with doping) is blameless. But why are such counterintuitive
decisions repeatedly made? And why don’t sports journalists question what they
see, or are told, more often?

Cynical or not the
answer is, of course, money. Who pays the piper calls the tune, and the
decisions made by those at the very top of sport are seldom designed to benefit
anyone but themselves or other interested parties. But while political
expediency used to dominate (the provision of a UK passport to Zola Budd, or particular governments or governing bodies decision
to join or ignore Olympic
boycotts for instance), the
basis for the majority of decisions today is economic.

Multi-millionaire
sportsmen and women may benefit from this administrative leniency, but they are
mere pawns in a much larger game where the governing bodies and corporate
sponsors benefit most. Team Sky’s
financial value to cycling, like US Postal before it, or Manchester United to
the Premier League, affords them a certain amount of leverage with
their sport’s governing bodies, for their success directly impacts upon their
own revenue streams.

Individually, Tiger
Woods receiving a two-shot penalty, instead of disqualification, for an illegal drop at the halfway stage of the 2013 US Masters is a case in
point. Golf’s biggest global ‘superstar’ at the time, this decision benefitted
the US PGA, the broadcaster and the sponsors far more. For asNeal
Pilson, former president of CBS Sports, explained: "When
Tiger Woods enters a tournament and when he is in contention in the final
round, we see a 30 to 50 per-cent increase over what is the 'normal' rating”.

But even when a
scandal breaks, the corporations such as Nike still win by claiming to have
taken a moral high ground in dropping tainted athletes such as Woods or
Armstrong, although they appear to have made an exception regarding Maria
Sharapova.

The media are not
invulnerable to riding this financial gravy train of course, and many journalists,
including The Times Matthew Syed, have been accused of getting too close to Team Sky or
other sporting bodies. However, there is a fine line to be tread between blatant
sycophancy and hard-nosed investigative journalism. Without access there is
little or no story, and journalists who ask hard questions rarely get
interviews, and football managers, including Sir Alex Ferguson, have banned journalists who do not toe the line.

The result is that most
of the biggest stories, such as the FIFA corruption scandal, or the slavery conditions of those building the
stadiums for the 2020 Qatar
World Cup, are now broken by
journalists who do not specialize in sports reporting. The media, and indeed academics, have
a crucial role to play in holding those who govern sport to account. Some media
outlets, most obviously Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp,
which owns a significant stake in BSkyB and recently purchased TalkSPORT radio,
clearly have vested interests in the Premier League but it is incumbent on
others to report objectively and challenge the actions of those in charge much
more than any individual athlete (granted the Armstrong case is exceptional).

We may think what we
like of Team Sky and Wiggins behavior but if the rules allow athletes to gain a
competitive advantage they are going to take it. However, the sporting public,
and the athletes themselves, deserve greater clarity.

Thursday, 9 June 2016

Following the terrorist atrocities in Paris on the 13th
November 2015 I quickly resolved to attend the European Championships as
planned (many thanks Matt and Pierre). I realise there is an element of risk in
doing so but, rather than superimposing a tricolour over my Facebook picture, I
thought this was a tangible method of demonstrating both my solidarity with the
French people and my disdain towards the terrorists and their misguided
agendas.

For the last three months however, the French people have
been facing up to another foe – their own government and the multinationals
behind the TTIP
Agreement. Proposed
changes to the maximum working week of 35 hours have grabbed the
headlines, but other changes, that make it easier for larger employers to make
workers redundant for instance, are included. It is for the French to resolve
but, just days before the tournament kicks-off, it is clear that large protests
and threatened strikes by railway workers and airline pilots have the potential
to effect some of those attending the Tournament.

I, for one, will accept such a fate should it happen. For
while the reforms may not mean “a
surrender to wicked, Anglo-saxon, ultra-liberal capitalism”, they do
represent the thin end of a wedge very familiar to British families over the
last thirty-five years. A wedge that has led to the ‘illegal’ employment
practices of Mike
Ashley. And the tax-dodging / ‘carpet-bagging’ antics of Philip
Green being rewarded by a government post and a knighthood.

Such practices have repercussions’, and wealth distribution
in the
UK is now the joint sixth most unequal globally (France is
fourteenth). Compounded by a steep decline in social
mobility, these unsustainable trends represent the end game of Thatcherite
policies that required the assistance of a militarised police force to
dismantle Trade Unions termed 'the
enemy within', before making targeted attacks upon other elements of
‘working-class’ culture.

Although calls are being made for another inquiry into
Orgreave, Hillsborough represents a solitary victory for those who were
targeted by the state at that time. But it came too late. Football, as coherently
argued in Hillsborough survivor Adrian Tempany’s book And
the Sun Shines Now, was transformed, on the basis of the
Sun's accusations of hooliganism, to appeal to the middle classes.
So successful was this transformation that many of the working-class fans,
whose predecessors’ had sustained football for more than 100 years, can no
longer afford to attend matches or – deep irony alert – pay Rupert Murdoch’s
satellite TV subscriptions.

In industry those initial, but highly significant, victories
opened the door to ever more changes and amendments designed to undermine Trade
Union powers and hard-won employment
protections increasingly shored up by the European Union (EU Law had
its own footballing cause célèbre in Jean-Marc Bosman of
course) but, as the current referendum on the UK’s membership of the European
Union demonstrates, divide and rule politics, aided by a predominantly
right-wing media, is thriving. The creation of the all too obvious, but
effective, schism between ‘private’ and ‘public’ sector workers over pensions
and the like, is simply the next step in alienating the working classes from
each other.

Following the loss of what were higher wages in the private
sector, good public sector pensions are an easy target, but the omnipresent
demands of employers for ever more ‘flexible’ workforces, and the use of zero
hours contracts effect all realms of work in the UK today. In football
parlance; ‘we was robbed’. The UK is, therefore, an apposite example of what
may be ahead for French workers should they surrender too much ground. From the
outside it appears that workers in all sectors are united in this struggle and
I will stand in solidarity with the French on this and terrorism – even if it
means missing a much anticipated football match or two.

Monday, 9 March 2015

Deservedly, Bangladesh will be
credited with ‘knocking-out’ a dismal England side from the 2015 Cricket World
Cup. But, as is the way with tournament sport, it was England’s inability to
add to a solitary victory, against Scotland, which has seen England eliminated with
one game still left to play. How, when we consider population size and the
number of professional cricketers at the disposal of England and Wales Cricket
Board (ECB), may we account for this ignominious performance?

Well it is not difficult, for we have
been here before. The foundations of this epic failure lie in the continued
self-interest among those who have run much of British sport for the last 150
years – the vast majority of that time under strictly enforced amateurism.
Professionalism – in terms of coordinated organisation, world-class facilities
and serious training – following the ploughing of lottery millions into a
variety of British sports, is something we assume runs through all British
sports today, but some sports are more ‘professional’ than others. As the
humiliating performance in the World Cup suggests, cricket, which remains tied
to the elitist ideologies and an anachronistic structure of the Victorian era,
is not one of them.

In a society increasingly riven
with class distinctions, the development of British sport from the 1870s was
inevitably influenced by such prejudices. As Tony Collins’ seminal work Rugby’s
Great Split demonstrates, one sport was even divided (in England at
least) upon class-lines (the regionalism involved a lesser, but related,
factor). The hypocrisy among middle-class men who controlled the Rugby Football
Union in denying predominantly northern working class players’ ‘broken-time’
payments for lost wages, while they were allowed ‘out of pocket’ expenses was
shared among those who controlled the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).
Professionalism in cricket, almost universally a working class phenomenon,
was too well established however and, in an increasingly popular and
commercialised sport, late-Victorian professionals, such as George Lohmann of
Surrey, became some of the very first working class heroes.[1]

This was problematic
enough for the elites, but the presence of ever larger numbers of working class
support at grounds, led some of the cricket elites to not only propose the abolition
of the County Championship, or the establishment of an ‘all-amateur’
competition,[2]
others sought a prohibitive rise in entrance fees,[3] in order
to eradicate any working class presence on or off the field.

These reactionary proposals
notwithstanding, some, including the cricket author H. V. Dorey, argued that
professionals were still necessary as
coaches and ground bowlers (indentured servants) to the counties and affluent
members of elite clubs. It was these ‘subscribers’ – the members of clubs such
as the MCC – men who he regarded as the ‘backbone of cricket, as in everything
else’, for whom the game was run.[4]Robert Morris has called such associations subscriber
democracies, but there was little democratic about associations which controlled
(all-male) membership via personal recommendations, expensive membership (a
form of financial apartheid) and, in the case of professionalism, increasingly
humiliating distinctions between amateurs and professionals until 1963.[5]

First-class
cricket has never been a democracy. Unlike the community-centric meritocracy of
the Midland and the Northern leagues, which the MCC and its mouthpiece Wisden reviled, so-called ‘first-class’ cricket in England has never been run for
the benefit of the supporters.[6]As it was in 1890, the game is run for a tiny minority
of demographically narrow (white, male and over 40) supporters who still pay
their membership to the eighteen ‘professional’ counties. Unfortunately, the
county clubs still hold the balance of power within the ECB, and turkeys’
seldom vote for Christmas!

In his scorching analysis of
English Cricket, Pommies: England Cricket Through an Australian Lens,
William Buckland reveals the way forward. In short, Buckland compares the
Australian grade system with the bloated English County Championship (ECC) and
comes to a very simple conclusion: There are too many nonviable county clubs
employing too many mediocre professionals. The game, he argues, must be
trimmed, and less, but more competitive and meaningful cricket played. Player
talent would be concentrated, rather than diluted, and the injuries that come
with an overly long County Championship avoided.

County cricket survives in England because
of the public’s interest in the national side, and yet changes to the game’s
structure that ought to bring about their desire for a consistently competitive
England team are ignored. Unlike football, where the success of individual
clubs in lucrative (and therefore more ‘prestigious’) league or cup
competitions such as the Premier League
and Champions League takes precedent,
the ECC is a cartel kept afloat by Rupert Murdoch’s money. One could examine
the serious damage that the ECB’s acceptance of this money has done in terms of
public access (a fraction
of the 7.4m viewers who watched the 2005 ashes watch Sky's coverage) in more
detail, but the point here is that cricket is being run by the wrong people,
for the wrong people (themselves). On-field success, as long as the money from
Murdoch (or charlatans like Allen Stanford) keeps rolling in, is almost
incidental.

The future ascension of Colin
Graves to the Chairmanship of the ECB might provide an opportunity for reform. Although
Geoffrey Boycott appeared reticent at the end of the Bangladesh match to
provide ‘on-air’ solutions to the current malaise, he did reveal that he wished
to have a chat with Graves. I’d suggest Graves also talks to Bob Willis and the
other members of the Cricket
Reform Group, whose sound-headed proposals were assiduously ignored by
the ECB in 2003.

The game is at a genuine
crossroads. Successive generations of supporters, and indeed players, have been
let down by the game’s ‘custodians’. Under their watch cricket’s status as the
national game was lost and English cricket’s genuine supporters have had to ‘enjoy’
cyclical success at best, rather than the sustained, planned, success of the
Australians. Furthermore, it has become increasingly out of the financial reach
of the less well-off who would like to support in person or watch on their
televisions. The inspirational effects that followed the ‘free-to-air’ coverage
in 2005 now lost, the youth required to maintain the lower levels of the game
are absent in the numbers required.

Unless root and branch changes are
made, it will not simply be embarrassing international failures that the cricket
authorities will have presided over. There is a real possibility – if the
current trajectory is maintained – that cricket will have become the boutique
pastime that Dorey and his ilk always wanted.

Thursday, 4 December 2014

I remember the day Diana, Princess of Wales, died very, very
clearly. The day began with a phone call from a mate I’d been out drinking with
the previous night: “Guess who’s dead?!” he excitedly shrieked. “Errr … Frank
Sinatra?” I mumbled, slowly regaining my senses. “NOOO!” was the reply. “Who’s
the most famous woman in the world?” he prompted. “Ummm … the queen?”. “NOOO!”.
“The queen mother?” I stumbled, really wracking my addled brain. “NOOO!! More famous
than that!!” “Sorry” I said, not being able to process the fact that it could
be a young person who had died, “I’m lost mate”. “DIANA! Princess Diana is
dead!”

I was more flummoxed than shocked (in my old job as a police
photographer I used to deal with the death of old and young regularly). The
only detail (details at this early stage were scant) that bothered me was how it
had happened?

A few days later, once the basic details had emerged, my
mate and the rest of my gang went on holiday for a week or so. I forget – as an
enthusiastic participant in ‘lad’s holidays’ – why I did not go, but not
sunning myself in Spain left me to face the nation's disproportionate and inescapable outpouring of ‘grief’. The lads had returned, all suntanned and white-shirted, in
time for us all to re-convene down the pub for England's
World Cup qualifier with Moldova. As Elton John's 'Candle in the Wind' was
played, yet again, I recall loudly uttering something along the lines of “can’t
we just get on with our lives – please?”, only for the mate who had called that
fateful morning to snarl in my face: “You’re out of order! She was the people’s
princess!” Diana had truly become the
outstanding symbol of emotional grandstanding.

This, it has to be said, was quite a departure from the
emotional norms of British society (my mate is a sound and highly intelligent man). The normally reserved and carefully measured
response to similar events obviously would not suffice in this case and
countless bouquets of flowers, candles, signatures in books of remembrance and tears
manifested from all sections of society. Blair’s canny aphorism; ‘the people’s
princess’ (the
spot Blair made the speech even has a plaque recording the event) worked so
well, because it was – for the most part – true.

Other societies react to death very differently. We have
witnessed, largely thanks to our viewing the custom on TV coverage of
Spanish or Italian football, British supporters increasingly adopt a minute’s
applause in preference to the customary silence (rudely interrupted or not). In
other countries, and this may well be true for ‘younger’ societies that lack a
long history of stoicism such as the UK, emotion is dealt with differently.

Australia, and the cricket community globally, are mourning
the death of the 25 year old international cricketer Phillip Hughes. His tragic
demise from the impact of a cricket ball during a match at the SCG is cause for
great sorrow, but has this tragedy – like Diana’s death – been overdone? Hughes
appears to have been the ideal of Australian masculinity: ruggedly good-looking, a country boy made
good, seemingly indestructible, and a thoroughly decent ‘bloke’. He was
undoubtedly a talented cricketer but, statistically speaking, he was unlikely
to ever become one of the game’s genuine ‘greats’ (I wish of course he was
alive to prove me wrong). This has not stopped a Diana-like outpouring of emotion –
seemingly stirred up by some sections of the media (four out of five of
Australia’s free-to-air channels broadcast the funeral live) and, most
disturbingly, by Cricket
Australia themselves. Only a miniscule minority who are currently grieving
ever met the man, let alone knew him well. While we have witnessed genuine grief
amongst the cricket fraternity who did know him well, we are being confronted by Twitter
campaigns by those who did not. I.e. #putyourbatsout and #63notout (the latter, which encourages the
performance of a good deed, and may at least provide a minor legacy of some sort), and even
the suggestion by Sky correspondent David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd that any score of
63 be applauded in Hughes' memory.

As the
distasteful politicisation of wearing a poppy also ‘inspires’, I do not
wish to feel obliged to publicly acknowledge the death of a soldier or a
sportsman or woman. These are highly personal and what should, for the most part, remain
private thoughts. Hedley Verity, the Yorkshire and England cricketer, who died
of his wounds in the Second World War did not receive such tributes (he does however have a pub named after him), nor the more
recent and, to my mind, more shocking sporting death of Ayrton Senna. And yet they are
remembered and rightfully revered, but that a relatively unestablished cricketer is thought
to warrant extreme ceremonies of public remembrance (potentially in any future innings) reveals
a good deal about modern sport and society.

It has been suggested in the excellent blog by David Rowe,
which exposes the public’s complicity ‘in the damage sportspeople can do to
each other and to themselves’, that cricket’s
primacy within Australian culture, in-part, explains the current
outpourings of emotion. This may be so but, having witnessed a similarly
disproportionate response within the Australian media (but, interestingly, not
the public) to the premature death of the actor Heath Ledger, something else
must be at play. I’m uncertain exactly what that is, but I have my suspicions, although Australia may be a special case, that our societal obsession with ‘celebrities’, and their role in sustaining an increasingly
trivialised media, does play a significant role. Sport is, after all, a highly trivial phenomena.

Today, celebrity culture is omnipresent, but how we choose
to react to tragic events such as this, or the anniversaries of tragedies of the past, appears to be dictated by the media (and sports clubs or administrative organisations) - this unaccountable accident does not compare, either in scale or in media reaction, to the Hillsborough tragedy. In this case the tragic (criminal even?) death of 'ordinary' football supporters led to their public vilification. What do these ‘celebrities’ represent,
and do they ‘belong’ to us 'ordinary' folk? Hughes may well have represented one future of
Australian cricket, and his death, one hopes, may result in more
measured forms of competitiveness in future, but does the fact someone is
in the public eye provide us with the excuse to gawp at their death behind a
veil of crocodile tears? The internet search engine Bing recently revealed that 2014's top internet
search was Peaches Geldof
who had done little of note prior to dying of a heroin overdose. Then of course
there was the very public life and death of Jade Goody, blisteringly
satirised by Charlie
Brooker. Whether genuine or not, unless we knew the departed personally,
there will always be an element of voyeurism involved in our ‘mourning’ of such
celebrities. The media, as it is beginning to recognise in relation to mental health,
need to reign-in the emotion and report events such as this in more measured
tones.

Phillip Hughes deserves to be remembered, but as a son, a brother, and yes (for the rest of us), as a cricketer
who died doing what he loved. Not as the poster boy of mass hysteria
engineered to elevate the moral standing of cricket, nor boost circulation or
viewing figures.

Wednesday, 8 October 2014

That it now
looks as if the BBC will be allowing Jeremy Clarkson, his
co-presenters, and Top Gear producer
Andy Wilman, to remain within their employment is hard to accept following their
latest debacle in Argentina.

Clarkson, a
professional ‘troll’, who has previously been disciplined for making jokes
about murdered women (who happened to work as prostitutes), Indians and
Mexicans, and for using the ‘N’ word, was found guilty this year of making
racist comments by Ofcom.
Since then, Clarkson has been reportedly “drinking in the last chance saloon”
having been, yet again, reprimanded by BBC chiefs.

The lack of
any direct action from the BBC following the number plate controversy, which
referenced the date of the Falklands War is troubling enough, but Clarkson’s
accusation that the Argentinian government ‘orchestrated’ the protests, in
which he claimed"lives were at stake", only adds fuel to the fire. It also suggests an
element of desperation on Clarkson’s behalf.

I cannot
speak for the BBC Trust's Board of Governors, but the BBC’s reply to my
complaint, that the programme makers: “would like to assure viewers that this
was an unfortunate coincidence and the cars were neither chosen for their
registration plates, nor were new registration plates substituted for the
originals” does not wash. I, for one, was not born yesterday, and I prescribe
to the Argentinian view that the events were
not"an unfortunate
coincidence".

If it were
just the number plates it might have been possible to have given the show's
producers/presenters the benefit of the doubt, but one aspect of the
controversy has been overlooked: the specific choice of a Porsche 928
(Clarkson's mode of transport in Argentina, and the vehicle which displayed the
number plate H982 FLK).

In the film Risky Business (1983), a Porsche 928 is accidentally sunk in a river, and
following its retrieval and delivery to a garage, Tom Cruise's character ‘Joel’
and his friends are asked by the garage owner "who's the U-Boat
commander?" See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bodVVtqmbZE

Clarkson et al know their popular culture very
well - especially any films that feature 'snazzy' sports cars - and this is
just one coincidence too many for my liking. Although a somewhat obscure
‘in-joke’, if this is not a reference to the British submarine that controversially
sank the ARA General Belgrano, I don't know what is.

How am I so
sure? There can be no doubt that a great deal of highly detailed planning would
have gone into the show (clearly one reason for the show’s success), and such
references fit the programmes ‘laddish’ Modus
Operandi, and Clarkson’s jingoistic (xenophobic even?) world-view
perfectly. I’m pretty certain that Clarkson’s ego would also have relished the
thought of cruising around Argentina in a metaphorical ‘submarine’ – even if it
was built by ‘ze Germans’.

Clarkson and
his colleagues must now be beyond redemption, should the BBC choose to act. But
it looks increasingly unlikely that they will, because, akin to the bankers who
brought the country to its knees in 2008, Clarkson is the biggest kid in the
playground, who scares the teachers and thus never suffers the full consequences
of his actions.

As in the City
and politics, much of this is related to the Old Boys Network, and it is
vividly represented within the Top Gear
production office, for the show’s producer, Andy Wilman, went to public school
(Repton) with Clarkson. Consequently, Wilman has been eager to protect his old
friend and colleague to the hilt, by previously dismissing racism as“light hearted wordplay”. The main reason for the BBC’s
lack of action however, is commercial.

The commercial
basis of the decision to give Clarkson ever more chances is a wider societal
problem in microcosm. The rhetoric of Clarkson’s friend, and fellow member of
the ‘Chipping Norton Set’, the Prime Minister, that so-called ‘wealth creators’
deserve or warrant tax breaks, or that banks are ‘too big to fail’, is
replicated in the BBC’s ineptitude. Just as no high-ranking banker has faced
any criminal charges for industry-wide fraud, Clarkson gets away with making racist
remarks or carrying out offensive pranks on a public broadcast channel because
he generates money. But, beyond his £12m contract over three years, at what cost to the BBC?

As a public
broadcaster, funded by the license fee, the BBC should put commercial
considerations behind those that ensure that it remains "independent, impartial and honest", or help in"sustaining citizenship and
civil society".
Repeatedly defending a presenter/producer who has been found guilty of racism
can only damage the reputation of the BBC, at a time when it has faced criticisms
for political bias and financial profligacy.

The time has
come for those in charge of the BBC to make a decisive stand. Either they sack
Clarkson and Wilman, or they publicly state that everyday racism is an
acceptable aspect of the Corporation’s activities. Option one is, of course,
the only viable course of action, for Clarkson’s ‘last drink’, like the public’s
patience, looks like it has run out.

Wednesday, 5 December 2012

The news from Holland this week
that a linesman,Richard
Nieuwenhuizen, died on Monday (3/12/2012) after an attack by players
during an U17 match in Almere (east of Amsterdam), the previous day left me
feeling physically sick. How it has traumatised his son, who was playing in the
match, we may only contemplate. This undeniably sad and
worrying event not only calls into question attitudes on and off football
fields, but social values within societies at large. However these ‘children’
may not have reacted in this way had an 'adult' or group of ‘adults’ clearly
demonstrated that such behaviour is unacceptable, and this calls into question how
parents interact with and discipline their children.

'Mindless' violence, be it by the citizenry
or the authorities, is common in many societies throughout the world,
and numerous reasons for this have been postulated: binge drinking, violence on
TV, film and video games, drugs, boredom and alienation to name just a few.
Such issues and their broader societal origins have been discussed in depth
elsewhere, and I would therefore like to address the origins of this tragedy in
a sporting context.

This unbelievably sad event is, in
my humble opinion, the sharp end of what, in the most famous instance, Alex Ferguson
instigated at Manchester United (with Roy Keane his
principle attack dog). Behaviour, in an ever more lucrative Premier League, that was eagerly
emulated by others such as Arsène Wenger, Kenny Dalglish et al and many of
their players. Pressurising match officials is not unique to football, and it
arguably has a longer history in cricket where the ‘sledge’ is almost
elevated to an art-form (W.G. Grace being a very early exponent). More recently
the Australian captains Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting developed this concept,
and with the mercurial Shane Warne at their disposal the Australians were able
to ‘ooh’ and ‘aww’ or appeal off almost every ball until an umpire did not know
what was up or down, ‘in’ or ‘out’. This relentless pressure (remember this
could last for hours at a time over five days) infamously led to the mental
disintegration (and early retirement) of umpire Steve
Bucknor during a Test Match against India in 2008.

This ‘poor sportsmanship’ towards
officials rather than on-field opponents is the worrying development. West
Indian Colin
Croft’s shoulder barge of umpire Fred Goodall in New Zealand in
1981and England captain Mike Gatting’s infamous finger-wagging outburst at umpire Shakoor Rana in 1987
apart, cricket, having introduced neutral umpires in 2002, appears to have kept
a reasonably tight lid upon such actions towards officials. But as the much
touted yet ineffectual ‘Respect’ campaign
suggests, football has a much bigger problem. Sadly (having seen it
works/provides an advantage), many amateur managers and players have emulated the aggressive
and intimidatory actions of those they see on TV; actions that very often fail
to attract the disciplinary or legal
consequences they deserve. However, influences closer to home must be
regarded as more influential, and the actions of
parents have been under the spotlight for many years. Ian Stone reported
on this issue once again, and the actions being taken by the National Children's Football
Alliance, for the BBC only a day
before Mr.Nieuwenhuizen was attacked.

In broadening out this issue once
again, we need to question the underlying values, attitudes, and norms in
behaviour, these ‘young men’ were brought up to believe were acceptable.
Children today are seldom ever wrong, often possess an over blown sense of
entitlement, and they do not appear to be able to accept a failure to get their
own way, or be taught/made aware that sometimes you have to accept defeat or
fail a task. I certainly remember learning the hard way that I had no God given
right to anything – not even a minute on the basketball court having waited over
two hours after school for a team from London to turn up (not good in a sport
where rolling substitutes may be used)! The same went for my parents, although
my father (a referee in what is now the Ryman League) thought the basketball incident a step too far and I never played basketball
for the school again.

That was however, as far as my
father was prepared to intervene (a quiet word with me in the car on the way
home - a stand up row with the games teacher would have been mortifying, but my father knew it was up to me to stand up for my 14 year old self). However, the behaviour of overly protective parents today: running onto
the pitch to berate officials at junior matches, threatening teachers who have
the temerity to discipline or attempt to feed their children healthy
food at school etc. needs to be addressed, for these Dutch
children did not react in this way without some 'adult' either showing them the
way, or allowing similarly aggressive behaviour to go unpunished.

In an age of austerity and reduced
social mobility, we, and especially the generation at school or university
today, are increasingly less likely to get everything we may ‘want’ out of
life. It is thus important that we develop or re-discover an ability to not
only consider our actions before we act (and the consequences of those actions
if we do not), but to have a healthy appreciation that ‘life is not fair’
sometimes. The British (English) have been lampoonedin many
ways for our stoicism in the past. However, the prescription of a healthy dose
of modern day stoicism would not go amiss. I think we are going to need it.

Friday, 17 August 2012

For those of you who are not aware who Kevin Pietersen (a.k.a.
KP) is, he is a world class, South African born, cricketer who has played for
England since 2005, and he briefly captained the national side between 2008 and 2009.
Recently however he has fallen foul of a hoax Twitter account, which poked fun
at his rather large ego, and his employers and team-mates in the England
dressing room. This ‘falling out’ is predominantly for the alleged sending of derogatory
text messages about some of these team-mates to their current opposition: South
Africa. Consequently, he has been dropped for the final Test of the current
series at Lord’s.

The
Pietersen affair has highlighted a
number of things: The persistent incompetence, or what the ex-West Indian
international Michael Holding called 'amateurism',of the game’s administration; The
negative affects that the publishing boom in half-baked sporting biographies
and social media have in an era of player power; And the implicit racism in
certain sections of the British press.

Clearly, as cricket is not an Olympic sport, the positive
image of multiculturalism displayed during the opening and closing ceremonies,
and within Team GB, does not apply to journalists writing for some of our
newspapers. As I have discussed previously regarding the 'Woygate'
affair, some of the British media introduce morally dubious sub-plots into
what, at face value, look like straightforward ‘news’ stories. The Pietersen affair
has brought an all too brief ‘amnesty’ in negative stories, which was replaced
by the equally unpalatable boosterism
of Team GB’s Olympic success, to an end. Such sub-plots have once again taken centre
stage.

Two articles specific to the affair have questioned whether
Pietersen, as a South African born cricketer, was ever really suitable, in cultural terms, for the
England cricket team? ‘Suitable’ is an interesting implication, for it implies
that cultural or racial differences trump ‘eligibility’ – a far more, if you’ll
excuse the term, ‘black and white’ issue.

Regardless of what
it ‘means’ to be British, this nation’s sport has a long history of sportsmen
and women from other countries representing us. These range from the Indian
Prince Ranjitsinhji playing cricket for England in the 1890s, the South African
born runner Zola Budd in the 1980s, and numerous contemporary examples.
While all are deemed acceptable when scoring centuries or winning
gold medals, if this stops, or the individual becomes problematic, the journalistic gloves
come off. But this is not an issue unique to sport and race, for our whole
society is subjected to such judgements.

Comments such as
these reveal the nature of certain newspapers and political parties, who define
a person’s worthiness, acceptability, or status by their success. Racial
issues apart, all is well if a member of our society is a ‘winner’, or thought
to be doing noble deeds (such as serving in the Army), but woe betide that
member or sections of our society should they be deemed a ‘loser’. Pietersen
probably doesn’t realise it, but he has much in common with this country’s
benefit claimants right now.